


Lightfingers

by oddishly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 18:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18481855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddishly/pseuds/oddishly
Summary: As long as they're already down there.





	Lightfingers

There’s a special place in hell for men who rob another man’s grave. Sam and Dean know that. Regardless, middle of the night in Gruene, Texas, they’re still to be found digging up a three by six hole not far from the coffin they dug up the night before, heaped earth and a roll of grass awkwardly fitted over the top of the neat rectangle. The edges overlap on one side and there’s a wobbly margin of earth visible on the other like they have no concern for their own souls or those of the folks whose rest they’re disturbing.

Tonight it’s Thomas, husband of Jessica and father of Marcus. The Winchesters are back at it with their shovels, digging straight lines and hospital corners as if they’re the ones laying the man to peace. A camping light sits low at the foot of a nearby tree, exposed roots casting misshapen shadows into the grave.

There’s an unexpected glint. Sam's wearing a watch Dean hasn’t seen before. “That new?”

It’s not. Up til some months ago it was still with its rightful owner, in the 20-year-old grave of a college drop-out who got shot to death in San Francisco. That guy’s name had been Sam, too. In another month the watch will be on the wrist of a long-haul trucker of an 18-wheeler, driving the last couple hundred miles to Billings, Montana in time for his kid’s graduation, and Sam Winchester won’t ever think of it again.

“Oh yeah,” he says and sets his shovel down. He shakes his sleeve up his arm. “You like it?” 

Dean nods. "Sure do."

"Yeah," says Sam, and angles the watch for Dean to admire. It's got a nice dark shine to it and some pretty, gold inlay, sitting snug on his wrist like it was made for him. "Lost my old one."

"You did?" Dean had been fond of that watch. It had a large face and a hearty tick, which Dean felt set the atmosphere. "Where?"

"Down a hole." Sam shrugs. He sweeps the hair off his face with the back of his watch-free hand and leaves grave dirt where it used to be. Dean shakes his head and reaches to wipe the smudge off with his thumb. “Probably the same hole you found those in.”

Sam nods at Dean's own rather nice cufflinks, glinting dully in the grass, sat atop a handkerchief for safe-keeping. Much as Sam should have done with the other watch.

Dean rolls his shirtsleeves back up. He does like those cufflinks. He’s been waiting for a chance to wear them. It took a while for the right shirt to come along. “What’s the occasion?” he asks.

Sam makes his _eh_ face. “No occasion. Seemed like the right time for an outing.”

Dean can appreciate that. “No time like the present, eh, Sammy,” he says, and sets back to with the shovel. 

 

 

Couple nights later and states norther, Sam’s looking up at Dean from halfway down another hole he shouldn’t have dug nor set foot inside of once he did. It used to be a woman’s grave. Also to be frowned upon. 

Sam’s still got other Sam’s watch, but this time it’s off to the side, sat on the handkerchief with Dean’s fancy lighter. The lighter wasn’t rifled from a dead man’s pockets, but their daddy has long since passed and it’s his initials scratched into the underside. Anyway Dean’s the oldest and you don’t keep a man’s inheritance from him unless you’re the government, and Sam and Dean don’t truck with that.

Tonight giant, chilly raindrops are landing in the earth, telling them a storm’s coming, and burning the woman’s bones hasn’t achieved a damn thing so now they’re back at square one. Dean stands and cracks his back and turns to Sam, gesturing impatiently for Sam to hand it over.

“Fine,” Sam sighs, and reveals a little snuffbox from his pocket. He tosses it back into the open grave, the embers, followed by a match that turns his fingers briefly yellow and orange.

“Told you so,” says Dean over the woman’s howl, and feels an embarrassing tug at the sour look he gets in return. “I’ll make it up to you.”

 

 

A little way south, a little warmer, and the lamp is protesting as the gas runs down and Dean is reminded with every flicker how long it’s taking to dig into this hole. Rain or shine, they always end up here, where no living man should be. The night yawns out in front of him, dry earth fighting back against the shovel, stink bugs whirling and smacking against the parked Impala and the ground and the back of Dean’s neck, and he’s thinking with pleasure about lighting them up along with the skeleton.

The coffin splits with the first strike of the shovel. “Finally,” says Sam, who for the last ten minutes has been sitting with his feet over the edge, kicking his heels against the wall of earth and giving Dean helpful instructions. He hops in but leaves his shovel in the dirt above. “Careful, don’t—”

“Shut your mouth,” says Dean, sweat crawling down his face, “or do something useful.”

Sam brightens. “Really?” He steps forward with his hands already going to Dean’s pants.

Dean swats him away. Then he yanks him back with a finger in Sam’s belt loops and gropes for his dick, massaging him through his jeans. “No,” he says into Sam’s hopeful mouth. “Get the shovel.”

They split the coffin down its length, smash it enough to open the lid without needing to dig anymore, and find the remains of Jackson Watts staring resentfully up at them from the other side.

Dean looks closer and whistles. A pewter tie clasp in the shape of an arrow is resting between two vertebrae. Dean reaches through Jackson’s ribs and plucks it out, tipping it into the light where Sam can see. He rubs his thumb over the arrowhead; the etching is of a quality you don’t see anymore, which is what Dean will tell the owner of an antique store in Phoenix a couple of years from now. “What do you think?”

“Do you even own a tie?”

“I’ll buy one,” Dean decides. “We’ll be FBI agents for once.” 

Sam wrinkles his nose. “Doesn’t look like a standard issue tie clasp to me,” he mutters, but his fingers are twitching. Dean smirks and pockets it, and pulls Sam up and out of the grave after him. The sack of salt at the edge is crawling with stink bugs, the final ward against an ignoble end.

Sam picks up his watch, then his wallet, then the lighter, then the handkerchief. He shakes the red dirt off and onto his hands instead, which is why Dean drives his own car, then folds the handkerchief into Dean’s jacket pocket.

The lighter flares as the gas lamp finally snuffs out.

“Jinx?” says Sam.

Dean rolls his eyes, strikes and tosses the lighter into the grave. Jackson goes up in flames with a hollow, half-hearted shriek. It’s approaching dawn; Dean knows the feeling.

He looks at Sam, momentarily torn between zombies in Wyoming and what sounds like a scarecrow situation in Arizona. “Where to next?”

Sam shrugs and says, "Arizona's closer."

Arizona has a hole big enough to bury the both of them, Dean's heard. And hell’s already crowded. They’ve got nowhere else to be.


End file.
